(2007-10-16) Science Textbooks

The Kids (2nd and 4th grades) need some science Text-Book-s as references for things they get interested in (Exposing Young Kids To Science, Elementary School, Middle School). (The narrow-subject visual books tends to be a little superficial.) Their science teacher doesn't like standard textbooks because they simply aren't any good.

• [here's](http://www.textbooktrust.org/Earth ScienceComplaint.htm) a sad/amusing complaint about a particular text (pub. Holt/Rinehart) riddled with errors.

She pointed me at a list managed by the NSTA. (Unfortunately, each year's list focuses on newly-published books, so you have to browse multiple years and compare...)

The AAAS site led me to this PRISMS collection of reviewed lists of web resources for Middle School science.

The AAAS is Framing science study through their ScienceForAllAmericans document. They have a parallel set of Bench Mark-s that are the basis for a Curriculum.

But note that the print version was published in 1993, and doesn't look like it's been updated! How bizarre is that?!? But they do have some new Atlas documents that are more current. And have a nice Mind Mapping style. Though this seems to link back to the old Bench Mark-s.

Update:

• bought Edward Tarbuck's Earth Science Text-Book ISBN:0131497510 - definitely a bit advanced

• browsed bookstore again at single-subject books: all are too lite

  • did buy The Periodic Table: Elements with Style! ISBN:0753460858